Birds of a Feather
by Anguirus111
Summary: Left in the charred remains of her mansion, Lara Croft reflects on the recent events that have transpired and the person she has subsequently become. And then an unexpected visitor arrives bringing unbidden feelings up to the surface. Feelings best left buried.


A/N: Just a coda for Tomb Raider: Underworld. This isn't really a lead-up for a future story just something I thought might make for an interesting direction if Crystal Dynamics every developed a game post-Underworld while still following along from that storyline. Some of the minor details in this story might conflict with the game's ending and DLC but overall should hopefully remain the same.

* * *

Croft Manor was no more. An otherworldly doppelganger of the current owner summoned by an ancient Atlantian under the command of a human out for revenge had deliberately caused its destruction. Whether because that was what it had been commanded to do or for its own sick pleasure no one was sure as the being had long since vanished into the underworld of the planet seeking out its former ruler for its own means.

All that was left now was to pick up the pieces to try and rebuild. But one part could never be restored or rebuilt, the loss of one its own members, Alistair Fletcher; dead by the hands of the aforementioned doppelganger. An innocent caught in the middle of a battle between three opposing poles. One wanting to end the human race, another out for revenge for a previous seeming betrayal, and the third nearly driven to the edge of madness trying to find answers for a tragic event in their past.

But for the third there were no answers; at least none worth the cost after it had all played out. The truth had only brought more pain and an attempt to try and come to some sort of closure.

Her mother was truly gone, the planet had nearly been destroyed, her ancestral home was a charred ruin, her trusted colleague dead… All that she really had left was herself, the person she had always been since fate had set along this path: the Tomb Raider.

Standing in the main hall, looking over the destroyed painting of her parents that had one hung above the fireplace while trying for the umpteenth time to not look over at the glass partition with its destroyed glass signaling the bullet that had silenced her colleague and the resulting battle that ensued between her and the doppelganger; Lara Croft wondered how she had ended up in this position.

Not the events that had occurred, or the destruction of the mansion; but wondering when she had found time for colleagues or friends or the loose family that Winston, Alistair, and Zip had eventually become. Lara had never needed such reliance on others in the past when she had raided the wonders of the world. All she needed was her wits, knowledge, and perseverance; and then Winston waiting for her at home with a cup of warm tea before the next adventure.

But over time that had changed. Whether through modern technology making the world more connected, the more complicated nature of the ancient sites she visited, or perhaps a feeling of increasing loneliness of being the Tomb Raider; at the end of the day she had gained two colleagues in addition to her loyal butler. And then over time they became friends and then finally a family.

That his loss hurt Lara nearly as much as her own parents proved unsettling to the archaeologist. She had thought such feelings had phased out of her long ago, but clearly she had been wrong. Like a priceless vase hidden just below the sand all it had taken was one good gust of wind at the right time to bring her feelings to the surface. And now she felt all the worse because of it.

The last time she had felt such pain had been years prior in a tomb in Peru when an entire archaeological expedition had become victims of a phantasm that no one was sure had come from or why it had existed in the first place.

But the deaths of the team paled in comparison to the worst loss that day, the death of Amanda Evert. To Lara, Amanda was more than colleague, more than friend, more than close knit-group that felt and acted like family: it was something Lara could not even begin to describe or come to terms with. Their similar backgrounds, temperaments, love of archaeology, and the feeling that by diving into tombs they were seeking out something bigger than themselves all drove that uncertain feeling home over the years they had known each other.

Amanda's presumed death by drowning had torn Lara's heart out even despite the fact that she would have died trying to save her had her carefully honed survival instincts not kicked in. It was this devastation that caused the Lara Croft she had been to finally begin to die and become the Tomb Raider. Now she would only work alone with enough firepower to stop anything or anyone that got in her way. And she'd been successful doing it raiding Atlantis, China, Area 51, and a whole host of other locales across the world. And yet the old adage was true in that time must truly have been able to heal old wounds by letting Zip and Alistair into her life despite her previous misgivings following the loss of her closest friend.

While some would think Amanda's later return would be cause of celebration for Lara couldn't have been further from the truth. It had only served to traumatize her mental state further despite the safeguards she had built in and around herself regarding her emotions. The person Amanda had become in the intervening years was nothing like the woman Lara had once known. If anything she had become a shadowy dark reflection of the person Lara had become. And like in so many stories of old, the best friends became mortal enemies.

And then Bolivia happened and Lara finally learned the truth about what had happened to her mother that fateful night so long ago and it was almost too much to bear. Only that fleeting feeling of kinship for the Amanda she had known prevented her from killing her outright due to her actions in the whole affair. And as her heart lay in ashes over the betrayal, in its place the Tomb Raider re-emerged.

The Tomb Raider needed no-one's help to get the job done. When Alistair was killed by her doppelganger, she shrugged it off and focused on the one thing that truly mattered: revenge. Death to Jacqueline Natla and to anyone else who got in her way. But that Amanda Evert then sided with her against Natla and whose actions in getting them back to Tibet complicated matters of what had since become a black and white relationship.

But after seeing what her mother had become since she last saw her as a youth…

To say it had left her devastated despite her hard years of attaining mental discipline both from her own experiences and from the tutelage under the greatest masters from around the world was an understatement.

She had lost her mother, she had lost her father, she had lost her home, she had nearly destroyed the entire planet…all for the sake of vengeance.

The Tomb Raider had finally hit rock bottom.

And as she looked at her surroundings with Zip and her faithful butler Winston she wondered if anything might turn thing around. Might make the Tomb Raider retreat back to the shadows and allow the original Lara Croft to reemerge. Truthfully, she doubted it.

Knock…knock…knock.

The front double-doors were one of the few things still standing in the mansion but Lara and Winston were nevertheless stunned to hear someone knocking on it rather than walking around the frame which was surrounded by almost nothing else. Lara couldn't help but wonder if it was finally time for the looters to arrive (apparently very polite looters) as she pulled out her twin Heckler & Kosch USP Match's from her hip holsters and aimed them at the door and nodded to Winston to go answer it. The butler walked fearlessly up to the door determined to perform his duties as if nothing was amiss in the mansion and opened the door and talked to someone just out of Lara's strategic location.

After a few moments of speaking, Winston nodded his head and gave a knowing look to Lara who regarded it curiously wondering who he was speaking to as he swung the door open for the new arrival…

…And Amanda Evert silently walked in.

Lara Croft stood there with a mixture of disbelief and resignation as she had wondered for the longest time if the blonde haired woman might make an appearance at her home after their recent adventure. She had no solid reason to think she would, just this impression that would not go away that it would happen.

But now that she was here, Lara found herself completely at a loss as to what to do about it. Her only immediate response was to let the guns spin limp on her hands before putting them back in their holsters.

Amanda did not have much on her, just a single duffel bag and a carry-on suitcase which Winston dutifully took and placed nearby in one of the few clean areas in the mansion. In fact, she was even wearing the same outfit she had had on in the Arctic which Lara found interesting. But clearly visible around her neck was the every present Wraith Stone which came as no surprise. If the Wraith still existed or all its owner could do was called forth its powers was something Lara had no interest in finding out.

Amanda for her part looked around the place silently taking in all the destruction. Her gaze avoided directly looking into the Tomb Raider's as she finished her visual inspection. She then mentioned something to Winston who then approached her with a broom and dustpan. And then soon Amanda was sweeping away at the floors without another word.

That was almost too much for the Tomb Raider to take as she finally sank down and sat on the main stairway. She had been exhausted since Helheim, Natla, and preventing the end of the world and had been running on adrenaline up until this point. But now this with Amanda and she found everything finally catching up with her and she finally felt drained of energy.

Noticing her actions, Winston headed off to the kitchen to prepare some food for her thereby leaving the two women alone in the main area together. The place was dead quiet aside from the sweeping of the broom and occasional outside noise either from the city or the various wildlife.

All the Tomb Raider could do was sit and observe. And continue to ruminate on the complicated relationship the two had shared. Conflicting thoughts that she didn't want to be having at this moment washed over like a tidal wave with no seeming end in sight. She could not find a raft or life preserve to keep her afloat as she threatened to drown in herself.

But not enough to override her honed senses and natural instincts as she felt a presence behind her that abruptly stopped at seeing the new arrival in the room walking down the stairs behind her.

"What is she doing here?" growled the voice.

Zip had finally made his appearance after working to get the power stabilized on what remained of the upper floors.

"I don't know," the Tomb Raider confessed. Having had to talk after being silent for so long proved difficult on her throat as it cracked from being so dry.

"How long has she been here?"

"Long enough,"

"You're not going to throw her out?"

…

"No,"

The answer came with no internal debate. No other option was possible in her mind. But how could this be when she was so conflicted over the individual in question? She honestly didn't know.

"You can't be serious!"

"It's my house and my rules," the Tomb Raider replied coolly not even looking him in the eyes. "You can either abide by them or leave, it's your choice."

An emotionless statement to be sure but that was who she was now and forever. That happy friendly little girl she once had been had died in the Himalayas all those years ago and had just recently perished in the Arctic once more. The only person she could truly rely on was herself. Nobody else mattered. But why did the pit in her stomach not go away with that statement, why couldn't she resolve her feelings regarding the new arrival?

"Then why doesn't she go somewhere else?" Zip demanded next.

Lara hadn't even heard why Amanda was really here, but deep down she knew what it was.

"She is here for the same reason we are all here. We simply have no place else to go."

Zip finally gave a frustrated nonverbal response to her statements as he waved her off. But rather than leave altogether, he stalked off and sat behind the remains of the computer terminal where he and Alistair had once sat together for hours on end working on all sorts of things for their employer. Trying to remember of happier times long since past, never to come again. In that, he and Lara were the same.

The sound of a tray clinking drew her attention away from her colleague and towards the humble and smiling older gentlemen with the tea and sandwiches for her. In an unladylike fashion she took the entire tray from him and put it on her legs and then after a moment's hesitation she patted the step next to her for him to join her.

The butler sat down and the two of them watched the scene before them of the cleanup process. Again entirely in somewhat uncomfortable silence. Winston was the one rock in her life having served the Croft family long since before she was born. He could easily-and justifiable-have left after she had denied her heritage of being raised to be a prim and proper young lady. And after the considerable adventures she had gotten herself into that had sometimes brought shame and dishonor on the family name and in some extreme instances had brought armed men onto the grounds.

The mansion burning down was definitely on the extreme side of things, if not off the scale. And yet Winston had stayed with no indication of displeasure over the sequence of events that had occurred, now or ever.

"You seem conflicted, Lady Croft," said the butler breaking into her reverie and once again demonstrating an uncanny ability to know her innermost thoughts.

"I should say so," she began as she visibly brushed a layer of soot off the steps. "Have you seen this place? The grounds have gone to pot. You haven't been doing a very good job lately of taking care of my affairs." She added lightly.

A slight smile tugged at Winston's face at that before it turned to a more melancholy expression.

"I shall endeavor to do better the next time," he promised at the joke. "But that was not to which I was referring as the cause of your conflict."

And his gaze turned solely on the blonde-haired woman in the room and the pit in Lara's stomach blossomed into a gaping hole. Winston knew her just as well as she knew herself, better even sometimes. She could deny his opinion or else tell him to mind his own business. But in this time and this place she found that she couldn't.

"Why does it hurt?" she finally asked in pain as she crossed her arms tightly her stomach. "After everything that happened, after everything she did, after everything _we_ did, why can't I hate her? My mother, Natla, the Doppelganger, Alistair… I want to hate her, I should hate her, I need to hate her. But I can't."

Winston leaned back with his arms propping him up from the step behind him as he looked up at the night sky through the destroyed roof.

"Perhaps I should not be surprised that with your razor sharp attention to detail on everything outside yourself, that you should be so blind as to what is inside yourself," he admitted.

Lara wanted to deny it, but both in her analytical mind and in her heart she knew what he said was true.

"Then I am all ears," Lara admitted wanting to get it over with. She needed to move on from this whole situation with Amanda and focus on things that mattered.

"I don't know if the answer is what you will want to hear," her butler was reluctant to point out but felt he had no choice regardless of how she might take that.

"I have handled uncomfortable truths before, this will be no different," said the Tomb Raider dismissively as she blew out some air from her mouth that pushed away a stray lock of hair.

"I still don't think you will like what I am about to say. Your childhood with the loss of both your parents at such a young age has often made it difficult for you to truly understand matters of the heart. I do not relish telling you this; but over the years I have seen a bright exuberant young child become and more withdrawn after every adventure. These were not choices you yourself made but rather came about by the circumstances you found yourself placed in,"

The Tomb Raider took no offense to his statements, he was not being cruel merely pragmatic. But it still felt like driving a knife into her chest which was compounded by the thoughts she had already just been having.

"Regardless of my feelings, I have never been one to shy away from the truth," Lara pointed out.

"Very well,"

Winston sighed deeply as if ashamed at having to be the one to tell her this.

"You love her,"

The Tomb Raider said nothing for several moments after that. She could only drink her tea and eat her sandwich.

"Don't be ridiculous, I don't love anyone," she scoffed before realizing who she was telling to and decided to finish her sandwich than say more. The butler took no offense to her statement, he cared about her too much and knew her too long to do so.

Winston could have either stayed silent at that or continued to make his point. He chose the latter because if he didn't, he could tell the Tomb Raider side of her personality was threatening to consume what was left of the Lara Croft he had known as a child and as a young woman.

"Lady Croft, your fates have been intertwined since before either of you knew each other. Her actions led to the loss of your mother, your actions led to the dig in Peru, both of your actions led to Bolivia. Afterwards Jacqueline Natla preyed on both of your fears and insecurities and nearly got what she wanted and ended the world. Only together were you able to stop her and save everyone…and more importantly save yourselves.

You have been an only child, your parents never discussed having another. Yes you hate each other, you loathe each other, you can't stand each other. But you also cannot stand being apart. If I may be so bold, that woman over there for all intents and purposes is the closest thing you will ever have to family. The closest thing you will ever have…to a sister."

And with that off his chest, Winston stood back up collected the now empty tray and returned back down the stairs to the kitchen.

And all the Tomb Raider could do was ruminate once more as despite her intentions otherwise, Winston's revelation caused the puzzle pieces of her feelings for Amanda began to fall into place.

And then Lara saw something that gave her pause. Amanda was now looking for a location to deposit her collected dust pan of debris and her eyes fell on a nearby wastebasket. But there was something already in that basket that had been thrown there haphazardly just for some place to keep it: The Sword Excalibur. Or at least, the one brought from Helheim. The other was hanging on the Croft Coat of Arms on the wall. Somehow both it and the Coat had remained unscathed despite the explosion and subsequent fire, as if the blade had protected it.

Zip was too busy on his computer to notice it as Amanda walked with trepidation towards the wastebasket. Lara could do nothing but just sit and stare motionless as if her inaction was not her own doing. Amanda finally reached the basket and pulled out the sword with one hand as her other hand still gripped the dustbin.

Lara finally found motion as her hands quietly moved to her thighs where her hip holsters still carried her twin HK pistols. But at that moment the final puzzle piece of her emotions towards the other woman fell into place and the picture became clear.

Her hands fell to the steps and rested there. She just wanted it to be over.

_Would killing me make us even?_

She closed her eyes and awaited the possible future blow to come.

It never came.

After a few moments the Tomb Raider opened her eyes to see Amanda Evert finally staring at her pensively, the sword still in her hand.

Time stood still.

Amanda then lightly feigned a motion to swing the sword at the nearby wall as if to test if it worked for herself before stopping herself and placing Excalibur near the coat of arms to then be lifted onto it later.

She returned her attention to Lara and then an almost imperceptible smile briefly crossed the blonde-woman's face and a silent message passed between them before she returned to her dusting.

_No, it wouldn't._

Time continued.

The two would never be friends again. They could never hope to fully come to terms with what had happened previously. But perhaps they could find coexistence…and that would be enough for them to continue with their lives. And in time perhaps allow the Tomb Raider to go dormant and allow Lara Croft to once again reemerge.

From far above on the roof, the doppelganger silently watched.

_No Place Else to Go_.

A/N: A lot of this piece was also inspired by the Tomb Raider Underworld strategy guide. Beyond just the maps and walkthroughs it also included character pieces on Lara, Amanda, and Natla and their overall places in the events going on around them and in each other's lives. While not mentioned in the guide or any of this story, this author cannot help but wonder if Natla had a perverse sense of viewing herself as a mother figure to Lara and Amanda and thinking of them as her two rebellious girls. It would certainly add another facet to her character and their relationships.


End file.
